Monday, March 30, 2009

The Weekend – Part II – Sunday

Whew…it has been a busy night and I need to get off to bed… But first I have to tell you about Sunday! Tri-It was holding a Spin-A-Thon on Sunday. Up to 6 hours of indoor riding with proceeds going to help local triathletes reach the podium. I love the sound of doing something good for a good cause. Plus I may have also been swayed by the words swag bag, Spolumbo’s sandwiches and door prizes. Since my longest ride to date on my bike has been just under two hours (both indoors and outdoors) I was a little nervous about the prospect of spending so much time in the saddle. I was assured that I could ride for as long as I wanted, and that there would be the option to do some yoga as well. So…sign me up! I had the option to ride from 8-2 or 2-8 and I figured I’d go for the morning session.

I woke up to another crazy dump of snow Sunday morning. Seriously, it doesn’t look like spring is ever going to arrive in Calgary… Getting to Tri-It that early in the morning was a challenge. The roads hadn’t really been ploughed yet and there were plenty of cars in the ditch. Since I think folks were a bit delayed thanks to the rough roads we were a bit late starting.

I had picked my bike up from Bow the afternoon before and hadn’t tested it out. But it sure looked so shiny and good as new though! The bike mechanic had even cleaned up the wiring for bike computer by hiding the wires underneath the bottom tube. Sweet! I set up my bike next to a friend and started spinning. I looked down at the computer and it was reading 0s. I lined the magnets up properly and started spinning again. This time the computer told me I was spinning around 250 rpm and going 5.5 mph?? I didn’t want to ride for that long and not have some estimation of how many miles I was getting in. I thought maybe some wires got mixed up, but once I realized that I just needed to swap the sensors around that sorted things out. By this time I’d already missed the first few minutes, but at least now I knew what was going on with my computer!

We had a new instructor every hour or so, with a break between each instructor so you could grab a snack or refill your water bottle. Some of the gals even came by with nutrition or offered to fill up our bottles while we were riding, so terrific support! Honey Stinger provided some of our nutrition and I just have to say that their dark chocolate cherry almond protein bar is amazingly tasty! Definitely my favourite bar that I’ve tried so far. Their organic energy chews are also really good. We also had orange slices and bagels and cream cheese for snacks, plus HEED to drink (although I stuck with nuun and water). And of course, the sandwiches from Spolumbo’s!

The first gal coaching us took us through what felt almost like an hour long warm up. At least that was how I took it. I knew I’d be on the bike for awhile so I didn’t think I should push it too hard, too early. Our second instructor helped us visualize going through one loop of the IM Lake Placid bike course. That was a pretty neat way to think of the ride on the trainer! Coach Angie was our next instructor and this was the first time that I really got my heart rate up. We ran through some single leg sets, some max rpm challenges and some sprints. Richelle took over for the fourth hour and this was where at least half of the group decided to pack it in. Richelle had a good workout for us though with a nice mix of low cadence and high cadence work. Our final instructor was Luke Way. Wow did he challenge us! 120 rpm for 2 min? Gear pyramids building to our hardest gear and back? Crazy stuff! Part way through Luke’s set my right knee started to feel a bit tweaky so I stretched, got off the bike to chat with Richelle and grab a bite to eat. I got back on the bike to finish the workout though…and it felt like such a good accomplishment! There were up to 50 people there, but probably 15 of us stuck it out to the end?

Apart from the tweaky knee I felt surprisingly good. My quads? In great shape. My sit bones? Not sore at all. Okay, it didn’t feel like I’d been sitting on a pillow the entire time, but all in all my new saddle is really comfy! And my bike fit? Also really comfortable. I figured this would be a good test to make sure everything on my bike is set up pretty well. I couldn’t have imagined riding that long indoors under any other situation, and switching up instructors and having so many people there made the time fly by. Literally. By the time I got the bike computer working I recorded 4:42:55 in the saddle, and the equivalent of 76.22 mi. My longest ride before that? Just over 32 mi back in September.

We had to hurry up and pack up so the afternoon group could come in and set up. I grabbed my swag bag and here’s what we got:

Sam McGlone was also there for the afternoon session so I had a chance to tell her that I enjoyed her talk at the Outdoor Show the day before. If I left Tri-It with one feeling on Sunday, it was that I cannot wait for all of this snow to go away so that I can get out on some really nice, long bike rides outside!